CRITICAL REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 2020, VOL. 23, NO. 6, 683–705 https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2018.1479819 The deep error of political libertarianism: self- ownership, choice, and what’s really valuable in life Dan Lowe Department of Philosophy, The University of Colorado, Boulder, USA ABSTRACT Contemporary versions of natural rights libertarianism trace their locus classicus to Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia. But although there have been many criticisms of the version of political libertarianism put forward by Nozick, many of these objections fail to meet basic methodological desiderata. Thus, Nozick’s libertarianism deserves to be re-examined. In this paper I develop a new argument which meets these desiderata. Specifically, I argue that the libertarian conception of self-ownership, the view’s foundation, implies what I call the Asymmetrical Value Claim: a dubious claim about the importance of choice relative to other valuable capacities. I argue that this misunderstands what is really valuable in life, and show how it causes libertarianism to generate counterintuitive public policy recommendations. KEYWORDS Libertarianism; Nozick; Robert; self-ownership; public policy; methodology Introduction: the case for revisiting Nozick’s libertarianism Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) by no means invented the political philosophy of libertarianism, but it provided the most solid founda- tion the view had then seen. Nozick’s libertarianism rests on a far more plausible normative basis than some other forms of libertarianism, such as Ayn Rand’s(1961) popular but untenable ethical egoism. It also avoids stak- ing a position in controversial economic matters, such as Milton Friedman’s (1962) claims that market regulations have bad economic consequences and can even lead to totalitarianism. Indeed, Nozick’s libertarianism can entirely avoid such controversial commitments, since on that view what rules out redistributive taxation (for instance) is not any determinate prediction about the economic consequences of redistribution, but rather that redistribution violates our natural right to property.1 This natural right to property is based on a simple and intuitive idea of individual self-ownership,2 an idea which continues to generate a sophisticated literature.3 CONTACT Dan Lowe [email protected] This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article. © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group 684 D. LOWE Yet Nozick’s theory can also be puzzling: despite its broadly plausible foundations (Cohen, 1995, pp. 69–70), the public policy which follows from those foundations is seen by many as counterintuitive and unappealing. This has led to innumerable critiques of the view, a full survey of which is beyond the scope of any single paper. While some of these criticisms have real merit, many have not fully appreciated the resilience of libertarianism, and on balance I think we are still waiting on a fully adequate critique of Nozick’s view. Indeed, some of these criticisms, recited in both journals and textbooks as the canonical responses to libertarianism, fail to meet some basic metho- dological desiderata. It is worth briefly mentioning these desiderata to see how difficult a truly satisfactory critique of libertarianism is—and what sort of critique might move the debate forward productively. The first desideratum is obvious enough: a forceful critical argument must not beg the question by relying on reasons the plausibility of which the opponent’s position rules out.4 Yet many critiques do just that by adopting a common argumentative strategy: trying to show that libertarianism fails to give acceptable content to the most central concepts in political philosophy, such as freedom, autonomy, and rights. Consider Jonathan Wolff’s(1991) argument in his book-length examination of Anarchy, State, and Utopia that Nozick’s theory of rights is ultimately incoherent. Wolff argues that having so few constraints on the accumulation of wealth ends up limiting the effective rights of others (141). Wolff may well be correct about this, but he relies on positive rights to make his case—a conception of rights which libertarians reject. Wolff’s case illustrates a difficulty for this general argumentative strat- egy. Which conception of autonomy, freedom, or rights one accepts is largely a function of the broader political worldview to which one is attracted. A Marxist will have certain conceptions of autonomy, freedom, and rights; a liberal will have rather different conceptions of each. Indeed, part of what it is to come to a coherent political worldview is to have a conception of the major values of political philosophy. Thus, arguments like Wolff’s which rely on concepts like autonomy, freedom, or rights, are likely to lack force against the libertarian, for the simple reason that his very libertarianism gives him a rival conception of those same concepts.5 Many of the canonical objections to Nozick’s libertarianism rely on the central concepts in political philosophy, and are thus at risk of begging the question.6 The second desideratum is that a truly powerful objection will not just demonstrate a weakness in a position, but show what is deeply wrong with it. Consider Will Kymlicka’s(2002) articulation of the familiar objection that Nozick’s theory of property is unworkable, since we usually have no way to tell whether one’s holdings were justly acquired or transferred throughout the entire chain of transfer—and even when we do know that holdings were transferred unjustly, their rightful owners are often unknown (111–112). This CRITICAL REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL SOCIALANDPOLITICALPHILOSOPHY 685 is a persuasive objection and a genuine problem for libertarianism. But for all its force, it does not get to the heart of the matter; the main thing keeping egalitarians from becoming libertarians is surely not the epistemic problems associated with chains of ownership.7 Consider now the numerous counter- examples leveled at libertarianism. In his popular textbook, Michael Sandel (2009) notes that a consistent libertarian state would allow an eccentric art dealer to buy a person’s kidney to mount as a conversation piece, and would do nothing to restrict even consensual cannibalism (71, 73–47). These coun- terexamples are evocative, and may pose a genuine problem for Nozick’s view. But even the most powerful counterexample cannot pinpoint the deep error of a complex theory; it is a natural extension of the Duhem-Quine thesis to say that counterexamples can only show that something, somewhere in the theory has gone wrong (Quine, 1951). This kind of critique leaves undetected any deep error in a theory. Of course, there is some consensus among egalitarians about the nature of the deep problem with libertarianism. Simply put, libertarianism gives too much importance to individual choice at the expense of other important social values. This is ultimately the conclusion that I favor; but even if this diagnosis is correct, it is not particularly illuminating. That libertarianism is concerned primarily with individual freedom is simply a slogan, and saying that it’s too concerned with freedom is merely to sloganize its rejection. Such an articulation of the deep error of libertarianism is too impressionistic and in need of rigorous argument to be persuasive. Nozick’s libertarianism, then, is more resilient than many canonical egali- tarian critiques give it credit for. A fully adequate critique of libertarianism has to include two virtues, in addition to the obvious one of soundness: it must avoid begging the question, and it must diagnose the deep problem with libertarianism. This paper revisits Nozick’s libertarianism to provide such a critique, and at the same time tries to gives some precision to the impres- sionistic claim that libertarianism overvalues individual freedom. The focus here is on Nozick because a great deal of contemporary natural rights liber- tarianism traces its heritage to the locus classicus of Nozick’s work—though it must be cautioned that the critique here does not thereby apply to every single form of contemporary natural rights libertarianism. The critique claims that the deep error of Nozick’s libertarianism is to be found within the apparent heart of its appeal: the libertarian conception of self-ownership.8 This conception of self-ownership lends itself to misunderstandings, and once its real commitments are seen clearly, its appeal should largely fade.9 Specifically, I argue that the libertarian conception of self-ownership implies what I call the Asymmetrical Value Claim: the claim that the value of the capacity of choice is radically different from the value of all other capacities. I argue that such a view is mistaken about what is really valuable in life. 686 D. LOWE I noted at the outset that for many, libertarianism constitutes a puzzle. One possible way to resolve the puzzle would be to show that self-ownership is not nearly so appealing as it might seem. If there is indeed a problem with the libertarian conception of self-ownership, then the fact that the theory gen- erates counterintuitive policy recommendations is no longer surprising— indeed, it ought to be expected. The target of critique: the libertarian conception of self-ownership Because the content of Anarchy, State, and Utopia is by now so familiar, I provide only the most selective overview, but luckily the core argument can be put quite simply. As I noted, most scholars now agree that the foundation of Nozick’sviewis the libertarian conception of self-ownership.10 The thesis of self-ownership states that each person fully owns him- or herself. Michael Huemer (2015)elucidatesthe meaning of this claim by comparison with other forms of ownership: ‘A person hastherighttoexercisecontroloverhisownbody—including the right to how it should be used, and to exclude others from using it—in a manner similar to the way one may exercise control over one’s (other) property’ (424–425).